Catholics in Malawi urged to support its aspiring candidates

Roman catholic church faithfuls have been asked to vote for its aspiring candidates in the forthcoming tripartite elections in 2014

Pastoral Secretary for archdiocese of Blantyre Alfred Chayima made these remarks at a workshop for Catholic aspirants at Nantipwiri pastoral centre.

He said as a church they thought it wise to meet its members who want to contest in next year’s elections to help them according to the rules of Catholic Church ant letting them know that the church does not prevent its members to join politics.

“Over one third of the population in this country are Catholics yet out of the 193 members of parliament 30 are Catholics.

Fr Chaima: Support Catholic candidates

“We also have the department of social teaching which encourages our members to participate in the social activities for the people,” he said.

Joseph Kampango, Diocesan Secretary for Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) said past experiences has shown that leaders stay away from the people who elected them when voted into power which is a worrisome development.

He said many areas are not developing and he attributed this to lack of adequate developmental meetings, unrealistic campaign promises and lack of consultation and feedbags meetings when going for important meetings among others.

“There is a need for our leaders to understand politics and the challenges that people are facing can be addressed by God fearing leaders who understand leadership as a vocation, service to the people and a channel to holistic approach development,” he said.

He said we must ourselves if we are satisfied with the level of Malawi’s development considering that next year we will be clocking 50 years of independence and 20 years of multiparty democracy.

“Are Catholics making use of the various beautiful and precious documents of the church like Pastoral Letters and the Bible? Has our participation in politics as Catholics contributed negatively or positively in the in the development of our country and how, for how long shall Catholics be spectators in this political field,” he said.

Some of the notable political figures who attended the meeting were the interim President of the newly registered Umodzi Party Professor John Chisi and Peoples Progressive movement (PPM) leader Mark Katsonga among others.